Once again Disney hits the ball out of the park with this new classic Moana. The movie tells the tale of Moana (voiced by the extremely talented Auli’i Cravalho), the daughter of a Hawaiian chief who goes on an adventure across the sea to save her people. On her journey she meets the Demi-God Maui (voiced by Dwayne Johnson) as they travel and fight against demons and monsters to return the heart to a Hawaiian God. To go along with this great story is a phenomenal soundtrack, composed by Lin-Manuel Miranda that will get stuck in your head, though you will not mind as it is far superior to the last catchy Disney soundtrack.

To put it simply Moana is one of the best movies of the year, with so many things that make it stand out. Perhaps the biggest positive is the diverse cast with almost everyone being of Hawaiian or Pacific Islander decent. This is a solid step forward given all the issues Hollywood has had in the past of miscasting roles. As mentioned above the soundtrack to the movie is incredible with so many great songs that will get stuck in your head as well as serve the movie. Even people who are not fans of musicals can still enjoy Moana and will enjoy the music, which does include the Rock singing (Is there anything he cant do). One minor negative was the use of the chicken HeiHei, who was intended to be the comic relief but the jokes fell by the way side pretty quickly. It was a shame that they did not use the small pig more as he had developed more of a story in the early parts of the film. Thought the story may sound like a typical Disney movie it feels far from it. There is strong humour, a great story tied into Hawaiian culture and amazing voice performances, in particular from the young girl who voiced Moana.

Having seen Zootopia and Kubo and the Two Strings, two very good animated films, I believe that Moana is the best-animated movie of 2016. The soundtrack and scores stand out, the diverse and talented cast elevate the movie and the animation design is again a high point for Disney. Moana is a movie that can be enjoyed by all ages.